Bass Problems In Mixdown - HELP!

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etanercept

etanercept

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This is my first post. I'm new to recording, so let me give you some back ground. If it's SRV, Clapton, and Hendrix I can play it. Please don't think I'm bragging, I live for the guitar and that's all I ever wanted to do, and I've been doing it for about 30 years. Spend enough time on it and anybody can do it. With that being said, I figured I'd record some and impress my freinds. I got the tools - (1) Sonar 8 Producers Edition (2) A screaming Quad 4 AMD with 8 gigs of ram (3) Sonar Firebox (4) M-Audio Studiophile BX5a Deluxe Monitors and (5) more VST plugins you can shake a stick at! I'm doing drum tracks, bass track, two to four guitar tracks, and a vocal. I put high pass filters on everything except the kick drum/toms and bass. I cut all frequency below 100hz on the bass and boost the kick around 120hz for 2 or 3 db. When I mix it down it sounds great in my band room. Everywhere else the bass is way too much and muddy. When I go back and try to fix the mix, the bass level that finally makes the rest of the world sound OK (I did say I was just begining) is almost non-exsistant in my monotors and still muddy on other systems. I'm not looking for the magic bullet, I just would like some input as to a path to some solutions. It seems I read alot about folks having too little bass problems in their monitor mix, but not the other way around. I could be wrong. I'm thinking room correction software. Any input would be appreciated.
 
I couldn't get it until I got my T. C. Finalizer, but today there's software versions, but in a nutshell you need multi-band compression.

Get a subwoofer, and find the best recorded stuff you can (Pink Floyd comes to mind) and get the bass to pump with that recording and try to match that.
The song I use, and it's not really my genre and I don't really care for the song because it's kinds stupid is "You're Makin' Me High" by Toni Braxton - it's mixed beautifully.

Forget all the eq numbers everybody tells you and use your ears.

I almost never boost with eq, it's all subtract. Boosting sucks.

An understanding of the harmonic series is very helpful, since the whole problem is the V, the second harmonic (if you count the first tone as the fundamental and the second - the 8va as the first harmonic) is the problem.

You gotta get the fog out of the bass as it hogs the track and doesn't do anything.
 
While you are mixing, be able to play a reference CD through the same system you are mixing on. Listen to the bass on the commercial recording and compare it to yours. The bass on the pro CD will probably be lighter than your mix that sounds muddy elsewhere. Check the low end in good headphones, again comparing yours to a commercial CD. Your ears will quickly adjust to your mix and think it sounds good. You have to go back and forth between mixes you can trust and the one you are working on often until you develop your ears a little better.

It could be your mix room, it could be your monitors, it could be the room where the bass was recorded, it could be a lot of things. If you record the bass in a crappy room it will be hard to mix. You might end up with some real big peaks and dips in the low end. Some notes jump out while others can't be heard. Makes you want to use too much compression, and you can't EQ it if your monitors are not letting you hear it accurately.

I struggled the most with the low end when I was starting out. Getting it right on the way in is most of the battle.
 
leddy said:
While you are mixing, be able to play a reference CD through the same system you are mixing on. Listen to the bass on the commercial recording and compare it to yours. The bass on the pro CD will probably be lighter than your mix that sounds muddy elsewhere. Check the low end in good headphones, again comparing yours to a commercial CD. Your ears will quickly adjust to your mix and think it sounds good. You have to go back and forth between mixes you can trust and the one you are working on often until you develop your ears a little better.

It could be your mix room, it could be your monitors, it could be the room where the bass was recorded, it could be a lot of things. If you record the bass in a crappy room it will be hard to mix. You might end up with some real big peaks and dips in the low end. Some notes jump out while others can't be heard. Makes you want to use too much compression, and you can't EQ it if your monitors are not letting you hear it accurately.

I struggled the most with the low end when I was starting out. Getting it right on the way in is most of the battle.
Click to expand...

+1 if it sounds great in your room but is a muddy mess everywhere else, then that pretty much guarantees the problem is in your room. Either your monitors have an attenuated low end or it's something about the acoustics of the room.

"Tune" your ears to learn how something SHOULD sound in that room, and you'll go a long way to making your mixes sound great everywhere else.

Also, with that introduction, you pretty much HAVE to post up clips for the rest of us players. :D
 
I don't think multi-band compression is the solution. If your bass isn't translating well, the problem is way earlier in the chain than mixdown. Obviously, low frequencies aren't translating well. That's an almost sure sign that your room is doing the job as far as monitoring goes. Is the room treated at all??? It's nice ti have all the gear in the world, but I find it amazing that people won't spend a penny treating a room.

Second of all, I don't know why you're cutting everything under 100hz on the bass. It's a bass!!!! There should be no need for that.

Like Dintymoore, I almost never boost any frequencies. I use EQ to cut un-wanted frequencies.

But, getting back to your bass problem, I'd bet $1000 your room is the problem.
 
dintymoore said:
I couldn't get it until I got my T. C. Finalizer, but today there's software versions, but in a nutshell you need multi-band compression.
Click to expand...

When something has not been recorded right and you just can't get it mixed right, I would suggest using some sort of spectral imaging where you can see what you are dealing with and get surgical with EQ before using multi-band comp. Digital compression is so destructive, IMO. You really have to save it for a last resort.

My $.02 :)
 
I'm with the room and monitors group -- I use cheap monitors and a mostly untreated room (not that your monitors are cheap - I don't know anything about them), and I have terrible bass translation problems. Eventually, I'll have that worked out, but I've taken a more practical and cost effective near term approach: stop caring :D -- I can now mix so that things sound good in my room and my wife's minivan, which realistically are the only two environments where anyone will be hearing my stuff - simple! :)

But yeah - be sure that your monitors fully expose the bass frequencies, and that your room isn't glarking them up. I wouldn't cut below 100hz either.
 
If I understand you: Your mix sounds good in monitors but the bass is too much in other devices?

Most non-reference speakers, amps and all commercial stuff boosts your bass. Pro recordings sound great thru them, listen to the same song thru cheap earbuds and the bass is almost non-existent.

Just remember a boom-box is going to boost your bass as will any car sterio made in the past 10 years.

And take the 100Hz cut off of bass tracks. You'll get that quiet "push" out of good speakers.
 
Are you a Grand Funk Railroad fan...or is that just a coincidence?
 
I agree on the room. I would think bass traps would be the first place to start. Maybe one in each corner to the left and right of your mixing desk to start.
Unless your desk is IN the corner....in which case I'd move it. :p

whatta ya think? How's your room now? What do ya have as far as treatment goes?
 
I agree with others...don't cut everything below 100Hz on the Bass.

IMO...that's where the fatness just begins. :cool:
If anything, you might "lightly" scoop out around the 200-300 area, which could be the source of your muddiness.
HP filters are usually set for around 80Hz...which I personally don't see as the real problem, since few things go down below that...so cutting what is not there, makes little difference...and most inefficient speakers tend to roll that off for you anyway. :)

The mud seems to be in the 160 to 300 range (depending on the instrument)...and the sum all your tracks will tend to cause a lot of buildup in that area. Drums, guitars, vocals...all can hit in that zone to a degree.

Also...try NOT putting your Kick and Bass both dead center....which seems to be a common practice.
I like to pan my Kick to about 11:00, and the Bass to about 1:00, which keeps them from stepping on each other as much, and also leaves a bit more free space for your lead stuff in the center.
 
You Guys are Awesome! Thanks for the replies.

Thanks for all the replies! To answer the big question, no my room is not treated. I know, I know, I hear all the groans. I'm a guitar player, not an engineer, I don't even know what treat a room means. Other than the drums and vocals, everything else is direct or modeled. That's why I was starting here. Give me a couple days to digest all the info and try a few things. Hey, only one comment on room correction software. How about the KRK ERGO? Sounds like a cheap solution to a million dollar problem. Why learn the room and monitors when you can filter them. Just a thought. Remember, I'm the new guy.
 
I've never heard what ERGO does to a mix but imo, there's really know real shortcuts to alot of this. Not to knock a product I've never heard but I just can't see it happnin.
Also, imho ;) the room is one of them things that should be tuned, just like you tune your guit-fiddles. Not only for tracking with mics but mixing especially.
Check out Ethan Winer's goodz. Good dude and savvy about this stuff.

http://www.realtraps.com/howto.htm

Another very knowledgeable and cool dude is Glen Kuras (sp?)

http://www.gikacoustics.com/room_setup.php


yeah...a lot to digest. Like I said, I start with bass traps in the corners. At least to the left and right of your desk.
And...
there are threads in the studio building section that some savvy dudes built their own bass traps for not much cash. You a bit of a handyman?

Do you have a dedicated room? (sorry if ya already said that) What're the dimensions of it? I ask cuz rectangle works better than square and the best mixing position is roughly 1/3 of the way into the room...with your desk facing the wall and your back to the length of it. My room isn't big enough to do that cuz I was an idiot when I built it. :p

Luck dude...;)
 
Dogbreath - this could very well be ignorance on my part, since I track and mix in my bedroom, which isn't exaxtly an acoustically treated space... :D

...but if his problem is the bass sounds great in the room, but is way too powerful on every other system, then I wouldn't have thought bass traps would be terribly useful because it sounds like his monitors simply aren't producing enough low end, so he's cranking it up to compensate and then it's overpowering everywhere else.

Those m-audios have a 5" driver - I'd think either adding a sub or swapping them to something with an 8" might go a long way here... The frequency responce M-Audio cites cuts off at 56hz, which if you're not getting a clear picture below that point could very well be the issue he's facing.
 
etanercept said:
I cut all frequency below 100hz on the bass and boost the kick around 120hz for 2 or 3 db. When I mix it down it sounds great in my band room. Everywhere else the bass is way too much and muddy.
Click to expand...

What you're describing are utterly typical room problems. You're sitting in a big null spot, so when you're adding at 120 you're just making the low end even more boomy. The only permanent solution is dealing with the core acoustic issues with broad band panels and bass traps. ERGO and ARC are good solutions, but (ironically) only AFTER the room as been treated, not before. They are not substitutes for proper treatment; they're supplements to proper treatment. It's certainly not that they don't work...they do...but outside the context of a treated room they'll create more problems than they'll solve.

Frank
 
Yo Drew...
I see what you're sayin...
If ya add more bass to the equation at the monitoring level, it kinda forces you to lower it in the mix.
Am I readin ya right?

In fact, I did something similar...I had an old Pioneer amp with stereo speakers and when I'd burn off a mix and find it was too heavy in bass , I'd go back to the multitrack, and turn UP the bass on my amp...forcing me to lower it in the mix.

It worked reasonably well but it was all a guessing game. Like in the the dreaded low mid mud. Burn a CD, try it on a bunch of different systems, go back and remix, burn another CD etc...there was also no consistency there. Almost to where ya start "mixing by numbers" and we know that never works cuz every tune is different. Different mics, guitars, pickups blah blah...

Basically, (imo) it comes down to TROOF. :p If you're not able to hear what's really goin on in the mix, ya can't fix it.

I don't claim to have a bunch of technical knowledge but I know what's helped me.
That's all I'm tryin to pass on.

Ethan and Glen now...;) they got the smarts on this stuff. Check out what they say about this stuff.

Peace mang..........Kel
 
Do not add a sub to that space. I know it seems like the right thing to do...you don't have much low end so you want to add a sub to make up for it. What you may not know is that it'll actually make the problem much worse. Here's how:

You've seen a wave tank, right? Imagine a plexiglass box with an oscillator at one end. Simple physics will tell you that the frequency and amplitude of the waves will be determined by the dimensions of the box and the energy generated by the oscillator (assuming an arbitrary amount of water in the tank). The more energy you put into the oscillator, the higher the crests and deeper the troughs become, though the position of the standing waves never changes. Tracking?

Your room is the wave tank and the speakers are the oscillator. The more energy you pour into the room at, say 60Hz the worse the null spot at the listening position will be come. Now, you might succeed at pushing it back some with enough sub gain, but you'll make other areas of the spectrum much worse in the process. The net result would certainly be a loss acoustically.

Your problem has everything to do with the physical space you're listening in; you must do something to address that or you're only moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

Frank
 
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